Cottontown

Take a walking tour of the historic Cottontown neighborhood in Columbia, SC. Or just take a virtual tour and see the sights and explore the history in the comfort of your home!

• Visit 31 locations in the neighborhood.
• Each location has images and descriptions depicting Cottontown from the late 1800s to the present.
• Tap on an image to zoom in to see more detail.
• Video interviews with residents describing what it was like growing up in Cottontown.
• Interactive map showing your current location and pins for each stop on the tour. Touch any map pin to get more information about that location.

ABOUT COTTONTOWN
Drawing its name from the cash crop that South Carolina extensively farmed during the 19th and early 20th centuries, Cottontown is among a handful of early Columbia, SC suburbs established over a century ago. Today, the narrow district is bounded on the west by North Main Street, the north by Grace Street, the east by Bull Street, and the south by Elmwood Avenue.

In its earliest years, this area lay immediately outside the original city limits and contained cotton warehouses. For several decades, beginning in the late 19 century, Cottontown was renamed Bellevue, perhaps in the hope of drawing greater numbers of new residents.

Listed in the National Register of Historic Places as the “Bellevue Historic District” in 1997, Cottontown features a remarkable concentration of residences representative of early 20th-century suburbanization.

ABOUT HISTORIC COLUMBIA
The Cottontown Walking Tour was designed by Historic Columbia, which has worked for over 50 years to provide protection for Columbia, SC structures with cultural and historical importance.